<aside> 💡
AI Summary:
Existential Risk Studies (ERS):
Source: “This paper explores the history of Existential Risk Studies (ERS). While concerns about human extinction can be traced back to the 19th century, the field only emerged in the last two decades with the formal conceptualization of existential risk. Since then, there have been three distinct ‘waves’ or research paradigms: the first built on an explicitly transhumanist and techno-utopian worldview; the second growing out of an ethical view known as ‘longtermism’ that is closely associated with the Effective Altruism movement; and the third emerging from the interface between ERS and other fields that have engaged with existential risk, such as Disaster Studies, Environmental Science and Public Policy. In sketching the evolution of these paradigms, together with their historical antecedents, we offer a critical examination of each and speculate about where the field may be heading in the future. This paper should be of interest to anyone interested in the field of ERS and how it became what it is today; however, our intention is also to help those working within the field to gain a more reflective and critical understanding on their own work and that of their colleagues.”
Source: “From forecasts of disastrous climate change to prophecies of evil AI superintelligences and the impending perils of genome editing, our species is increasingly concerned with the prospects of its own extinction. With humanity's future on this planet seeming more insecure by the day, in the twenty-first century, existential risk has become the object of a growing field of serious scientific inquiry. But, as Thomas Moynihan shows in X-Risk, this preoccupation is not exclusive to the post-atomic age of global warming and synthetic biology. Our growing concern with human extinction itself has a history. Tracing this untold story, Moynihan revisits the pioneers who first contemplated the possibility of human extinction and stages the historical drama of this momentous discovery. He shows how, far from being a secular reprise of religious prophecies of apocalypse, existential risk is a thoroughly modern idea, made possible by the burgeoning sciences and philosophical tumult of the Enlightenment era. In recollecting how we first came to care for our extinction, Moynihan reveals how today's attempts to measure and mitigate existential threats are the continuation of a project initiated over two centuries ago, which concerns the very vocation of the human as a rational, responsible, and future-oriented being.”
Source: “…we suggest it relevant to deconstruct existential risks, and instead consider the broader category of ‘risks as a function of hazard, vulnerability and exposure’: Here, hazard denotes the external source of peril (which is captured within the prevailing agenda studying existential risks)—the ‘spark’ that threatens the pan-generational/crushing harm. Vulnerability denotes propensities or weaknesses inherent within human social, political, economic or legal systems, that increase the likelihood of humanity succumbing to pressures or challenges that threaten existential outcomes. Finally, exposure denotes the ‘reaction surface’—the number, scope and nature of the interface between the hazard and the vulnerability. Thus, a hazard is what kills us, and a vulnerability is how we die. Exposure is the interface or medium between what kills us, and how we die. To take an example from disaster studies, a major earthquake only becomes a risk if the built, social or institutional environment can be destabilised during earthquakes of the threatened magnitude (‘is vulnerable to’), and if such an environment is located in (‘exposed to’) an earthquake zone. Thus, vulnerability and exposure refer to two different aspects of the affected system: how it breaks, and how it intersects with a given hazard’s operating space or pathways of impact.”
Source: “This paper examines and analyzes five definitions of ‘existential risk’… These are existential risks as (i) human extinction, (ii) human extinction or civilizational collapse, (iii) human extinction or a permanent and drastic loss of potential, (iv) any catastrophe with pangenerational-crushing effects, and (v) a significant loss of expected value… In my view, the second definition of existential risk as either human extinction or civilizational collapse is preferable to the first, and probably the best definition for the purpose of communicating to the general public… the second definition avoids the simplism of the first definition as well as the esoterica of the last three; it constitutes a middle ground between these two ends… This being said, there remains the second question of which definition ought to be the canonical one used by scholars in conversations amongst themselves and with professional scientists and philosophers outside the field. Here the simplism of the first definition and imprecision of the second quickly disqualifies them from serious consideration. That is to say, it would be problematically misleading to equate existential risks with either mere human extinction or civilizational collapse; careful axiological reflection implies that what really matters are disasters with long-lasting effects that drastically compromise our potential to realize our various individual and collective ambitions for happiness, knowledge, peace, moral growth, and so on. Both of Bostrom’s definitions gesture at this idea, which makes them appealing, although as previously noted even some techno-progressives could find the focus on ‘technological maturity’ to be objectionable. Indeed, transhumanism remains a controversial normative-futurological position, and recall from above that a relatively small minority of professional philosophers espouse total utilitarianism. For reasons such as these, I believe that the field of existential risk studies would generally benefit from eschewing both of Bostrom’s definitions. This leaves the fifth definition from Cotton-Barratt and Ord, which I believe, with modification, is superior to all other definitions in the particular contexts of tête-à-tête communication and efforts to evangelize for the field (of existential risk studies) to scientists and philosophers unfamiliar with its aims, methodologies, and so on… Indeed, it may be an improvement of Cotton-Barratt and Ord’s definition to make explicit that ‘value’ can be understood as denoting whatever one happens to care about. Thus, when a scientist or philosopher outside the field asks what existential risks are, one could respond: An event X is an existential risk if and only if X could cause the loss of a large fraction of expected value, where you (the interlocutor) can define ‘value’ however you’d like.”
Source: “Studying potential global catastrophes is vital. The high stakes of existential risk studies (ERS) necessitate serious scrutiny and self-reflection. We argue that existing approaches to studying existential risk are not yet fit for purpose, and perhaps even run the risk of increasing harm. We highlight general challenges in ERS: accommodating value pluralism, crafting precise definitions, developing comprehensive tools for risk assessment, dealing with uncertainty, and accounting for the dangers associated with taking exceptional actions to mitigate or prevent catastrophes. The most influential framework for ERS, the ‘techno-utopian approach’ (TUA), struggles with these issues and has a unique set of additional problems: it unnecessarily combines the study of longtermism and longtermist ethics with the study of extinction, relies on a non-representative moral worldview, uses ambiguous and inadequate definitions, fails to incorporate insights from risk assessment in relevant fields, chooses arbitrary categorisations of risk, and advocates for dangerous mitigation strategies. Its moral and empirical assumptions might be particularly vulnerable to securitisation and misuse. We suggest several key improvements: separating the study of extinction ethics (ethical implications of extinction) and existential ethics (the ethical implications of different societal forms), from the analysis of human extinction and global catastrophe; drawing on the latest developments in risk assessment literature; diversifying the field, and; democratising its policy recommendations.”
Source: Resources on estimating X-risks.
Source: Automatically updated X-risk bibliography. See also.
“The prevention of the supreme catastrophe ought to be the paramount object of all endeavour.” — Winston Churchill, 1924
“We must contemplate some extremely unpleasant possibilities just because we want to avoid them.” —Albert Wohlstetter, American Nuclear Strategist
Source: Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards
Source: "This innovative and comprehensive collection of essays explores the biggest threats facing humanity in the 21st century; threats that cannot be contained or controlled and that have the potential to bring about human extinction and civilization collapse. Bringing together experts from many disciplines, it provides an accessible survey of what we know about these threats, how we can understand them better, and most importantly what can be done to manage them effectively. These essays pair insights from decades of research and activism around global risk with the latest academic findings from the emerging field of Existential Risk Studies. Voicing the work of world leading experts and tackling a variety of vital issues, they weigh up the demands of natural systems with political pressures and technological advances to build an empowering vision of how we can safeguard humanity’s long-term future. The book covers both a comprehensive survey of how to study and manage global risks with in-depth discussion of core risk drivers: including environmental breakdown, novel technologies, global scale natural disasters, and nuclear threats. The Era of Global Risk offers a thorough analysis of the most serious dangers to humanity. Inspiring, accessible, and essential reading for both students of global risk and those committed to its mitigation, this book poses one critical question: how can we make sense of this era of global risk and move beyond it to an era of global safety?"
Source: “The ark, or gene bank, would be safely hidden in these hollowed-out tunnels and caves sculpted by lava more than 3 billion years ago and would be powered by solar panels above. It would hold the cryogenically preserved genetic material of all 6.7 million known species of plants, animals and fungi on Earth, which would require at least 250 rocket launches to transport to the moon, according to the researchers. Scientists believe the endeavor could safeguard our planet's wildlife against both natural and human-caused apocalyptic scenarios, such as a supervolcano eruption or a nuclear war, and ensure the survival of their genes... Only by storing the genetic information somewhere else in the solar system can we ensure it survives any existential threats to Earth, the researchers said... transporting the samples to the moon will be the most challenging and costly aspect of building the ark, Based on some ‘quick, back-of-the-envelope calculations,’ he said. Those calculations assume that 50 samples of each species would be needed to successfully reintroduce a species. However, reintroducing each species could actually take as many as 500, which would mean many more rockets were needed, Thanga said. These calculations also don't include the launches needed to transport the necessary materials to build the ark in the first place. ‘It will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to build the ark and transport samples,’ Thanga said. ‘But this isn't totally out of the question for international collaborations like the U.N... Even so, one aspect of the lunar ark is currently out of reach. In order for the samples to be cryogenically preserved, they must be stored at extremely low temperatures between minus 292 and minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 180 to minus 196 degrees Celsius). This means that it would be impractical to use humans to sort and retrieve samples from the cryostorage modules. Instead, robots would have to do the heavy lifting. But at such low temperatures, the robots would freeze to the floor via cold welding, where metals fuse together under freezing temperatures. The solution, according to the researchers, is quantum levitation. This theoretical solution is basically a supercharged version of magnetism using superconductive materials to fix objects in a magnetic field.”
Source: “The box will be filled with a mass of storage drives and have internet connectivity, all powered by solar panels on the structure's roof. Batteries will provide backup power storage. When the sun is shining, the black box will be downloading scientific data and an algorithm will be gleaning climate-change-related material from the internet. Broadly, it will be collecting two types of data: It will collect measurements of land and sea temperatures, ocean acidification, atmospheric CO2, species extinction, land-use changes, as well as things like human population, military spending and energy consumption. And it will collect contextual data such as newspaper headlines, social media posts, and news from key events like Conference of the Parties (COP) climate change meetings. ‘The idea is if the Earth does crash as a result of climate change, this indestructible recording device will be there for whoever's left to learn from that,’ Mr Curtis says.”
Source: "Scientists already know that magnetic north shifts. Once every few hundred thousand years the magnetic poles flip so that a compass would point south instead of north. While changes in magnetic field strength are part of this normal flipping cycle, data from Swarm have shown the field is starting to weaken faster than in the past. Previously, researchers estimated the field was weakening about 5 percent per century, but the new data revealed the field is actually weakening at 5 percent per decade, or 10 times faster than thought. As such, rather than the full flip occurring in about 2,000 years, as was predicted, the new data suggest it could happen sooner.”
Source: New special issue on the philosophy of existential risk.
Source: “How might the world as we know it end? In this illustrated guide, How Stuff Works author Marshall Brain explores myriad doomsday scenarios and the science behind them. What if the unimaginable happens? A nuclear bomb detonates over a major city, for example, or a deadly virus infects millions around the world. There are other disasters we don’t even have to imagine because they’ve already occurred, like violent hurricanes or cataclysmic tsunamis that have caused horrific loss of life and damage. In The Doomsday Book, Marshall Brain explains how everything finally ends—the decimation of nations and cities, of civilization, of humanity, of all life on Earth. Brain takes a deep dive into a wide range of doomsday narratives, including manmade events such as an electromagnetic pulse attack, a deadly pandemic, and nuclear warfare; devastating natural phenomena, such as an eruption from a super-volcano, the collapse of the Gulf Stream, or lethal solar flares; and science-fiction scenarios where robots take over or aliens invade. Each compelling chapter provides a detailed description of the situation, the science behind it, and ways to prevent or prepare for its occurrence. With fun graphics and eye-catching photographs at every turn, The Doomsday Book will be the last book you’ll ever have to read about the last days on Earth.”